In the preparation for the update of its Roadmap ESFRI has decided in 2013 to incorporate questions on e-infrastructure needs in the ESFRI proposal submission form. It was also agreed between ESFRI and e-IRG that e-IRG members would participate in the ESFRI Strategic Working groups and be responsible for the evaluation of the responses to these ‘e-Needs' questions. Another e-IRG member participated in the Implementation Group. This short report presents the collective experiences with this evaluation process and some recommendations for improvement.

e-IRG's reaction to the findings and recommendations of the report of the GÉANT Expert Group.

The GÉANT Expert Group (GEG) was established by the European Commission in December 2010, with the mandate to articulate a 2020 vision for European Research and Education networking and identify an action plan for realising this vision. On October 4, 2011 the GEG presented its vision and recommendations in its Report ‘Knowledge without Borders: GÉANT 2020 as the European Communications Commons'.

With this paper, e-IRG provides its response to the findings and recommendations of the GEG-report. e-IRG welcomes the report, recognizes the analyses, and widely supports the recommendations.

The paper starts by presenting a brief summary of the main strategic aims of the GEG-report. It then discusses the issues that are seen as the most important from the point of view of e-IRG in relation to its mission, scope, policies and recommendations in its various Roadmaps and White Papers. It formulates questions and issues that the GEG report raises as well as an opinion from e-IRG on each of these questions and issues. It does not pretend to be complete as regards the issues raised by the GEG report, but concentrates on matters in which e-IRG can provide relevant input.

In this survey we describe the essential role of the e-Infrastructure community for the realisation of the Digital Agenda and the importance of a proper e-Infrastructure governance. Recent e-IRG observations, recommendations and actions issued in White Papers and other e-IRG policy documents are summarized and linked to the seven problem areas recognised in the Digital Agenda. The aim is to provide guidance on the developments and actions required to achieve the goals of the Digital Agenda.